Divine Evil?: The Moral Character of the God of Abraham

Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea

Abstract

Numerous critics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have argued that God, especially in the Hebrew Bible, is often portrayed as morally vicious. For example, historical narratives in these texts apparently describe God as ordering or commending genocide, slavery, and rape among other moral atrocities; and other texts seem to portray God as commending bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. The main chapters in this interdisciplinary volume fall into four groups: (i) the first three press objections by philosophers to the moral character of God as it is represented in the Hebrew Bible; (ii) the nex ... More

Numerous critics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have argued that God, especially in the Hebrew Bible, is often portrayed as morally vicious. For example, historical narratives in these texts apparently describe God as ordering or commending genocide, slavery, and rape among other moral atrocities; and other texts seem to portray God as commending bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. The main chapters in this interdisciplinary volume fall into four groups: (i) the first three press objections by philosophers to the moral character of God as it is represented in the Hebrew Bible; (ii) the next five offer responses by theistic philosophers to such objections; (iii) the next two after that present additional responses from the perspective of specialists in biblical studies; and (iv) the final chapter provides some general reflections on the conference at which these papers were initially presented. Also included in the volume are commentators' remarks on each chapter (except the last), along with replies by the original authors.

Evan Fales

Christopher Seitz

Part IV Concluding Remarks

Howard Wettstein

End Matter

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